


Fear Not the Demon

by IneffableDoll



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fear, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Introspection, Love, M/M, The Ineffable Plan (Good Omens), The author has opinions on religion and guilt, Thoughts on the universe and ineffability, demons sense fear as angels sense love, the author likes waxing poetic about things if that wasn't very clear, ultimately soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:34:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23435485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IneffableDoll/pseuds/IneffableDoll
Summary: Just as angels could sense love, demons could sense fear. It has been said before that hate is not the opposite of love, and those who penned such were right, for what is love but to Trust? And what is to fear but to lack a belief in safety?Trust is vulnerable and stripped bare, willfully, oneself unguarded and submitting to the whims of the other. To do so without the dread of retribution, of pain – that is the purest form of love, and it doesn’t often exist.It does not exist in angels.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 54





	Fear Not the Demon

**Author's Note:**

> I simply sat down and wrote this. Not totally sure where it came from. Hope you like.

Angels were often afraid.

It was ironic, really, for the creatures whose favorite line was “fear not” for a few millennia, but there was no debating the presence. It was the fear of God, primarily, that radiated from their core, but there was also something else.

The fear of Her wrath was codified in the presence of one who has felt it in all its glory. A creature who learned to fear the night only once they were made a part of it. The ones who plummeted through the ether and came out the other side as a physical embodiment of Her own fears. Not to say She could fear, but if She did not love them, what did She?

Just as angels could sense love, demons could sense fear. It has been said before that hate is not the opposite of love, and those who penned such were right, for what is love but to Trust? And what is to fear but to lack a belief in safety?

Trust is vulnerable and stripped bare, willfully, oneself unguarded and submitting to the whims of the other. To do so without the dread of retribution, of pain – that is the purest form of love, and it doesn’t often exist.

It does not exist in angels.

Aziraphale asked him, once, a couple of centuries ago, why. Why did Crowley approach the Eastern Gate that day? There were three other perfectly good gates, my dear, so why that one? Why him?

And Crowley did not know how to tell him that it was because, for all his anxious energy, for all the unease the principality felt toward God, toward himself, toward the humans – there was no fear of the Fallen in the Guardian of the Eastern Gate.

The other three – they all had it, to varying degrees. They were afraid of what God did to those who disobeyed. This could be interpreted as a fear of God Herself, ultimately, but practically speaking, it meant that they were bound to act out of panic and attack that which confused them.

Things like a demon, the very image of who they could be if they made a mistake. If they broke God’s Trust. For God loved them, so She must trust them, and sometimes it is more frightening to be loved than to love.

Crowley approached Aziraphale that day because Aziraphale was not afraid of him. Not even when the snake revealed himself was there the slightest flicker of the emotion directed his way. Apprehension, certainly. Confusion, contempt, distaste, and even a hint of curiosity. But all this did not culminate in the thing Crowley could sense.

Aziraphale knew Crowley could sense fear, just as vice versa regarding love.

Demons were not often afraid.

They had already seen the worst that their Mother could give, they had already been punished and battered beyond repair and promised nothing more gratifying than an eternal torment. Their fears had been realized, actualized, executed moreso than they had _known_ to fear. Their fear had frankly been inadequate for what followed it.

The Fallen did not fear angels, for even the worst they could offer would not be worse than what had been done unto them by their Creator.

Crowley approached Aziraphale that day because Crowley was afraid of him, for not fearing him. Crowley had feared nothing since his Fall, had no idea how to quantify what it was to see the feeling radiate from his own core. Why was he afraid?

Why?

Two things were clear about Crowley in the millennia that carried him through his existence: the first was that, as a being forged out of fear, he was still built to love. The second was that, for a being capable of so much love, he had so much fear to carry.

Crowley saw one, and not the other.

Aziraphale saw the other, and not the one.

Aziraphale was not afraid of Crowley, but he was afraid of everything else. As he spoke the words, “fear not,” he didn’t know he needed those words spoken to him instead, and that no one ever would. It would be to say, “love not.” Love and fear were one. They went together perfectly, complementing each other like the way joy and guilt seemed to meld under the banner of righteousness. One must chase the other, eternally, in circles. Rounded on the edges for the length of the endless game that turned him in motion without making forward progress.

The smile bore shame, the laugh carried guilt, the hands held his trembling soul.

Crowley saw the latter, always the latter. Why was the angel afraid?

Why?

And then that day, it came and went like it had been written, but not _as_ it had been, instead veering into the grass from a one-way track, nothing to see ahead but their own demise.

There was so much fear, Crowley noted, and he understood why.

Such love, and Aziraphale basked in it for courage.

They switched sides then, but on their own side, it simply meant a slightly different place to stand in the same room as always. They were both there, together, love and fear and love, but the view was different. An angel’s eyes, a demon’s eyes.

Aziraphale knew then what it was to taste fear, like an immortal damnation, and Crowley saw for the first time what had been there in lieu of Aziraphale's fear of him. Millennia had danced together, woven the emotions in a tight braid, into clumped knots and torn tapestries with crisp threads. The musk of distrust that so long ago evaporated, an aroma that suffused their beings that neither had known was already gone.

There would be talks, long talks. Misunderstandings righted; wrongs understood.

When their incorrect corporations merged in a park, on a bench that knew their names in a place that had their homes in the hands of those with the literal and metaphorical hearts of the counterpart, Crowley saw the change without borrowed eyes.

An angel was not afraid of anything but him, him specifically. He feared him. A nervous energy that cut at the demon, and yet, he no longer feared in return, because he knew how to fix that. For once, this fear he could handle, he could heal, he could help coax it out and appreciate the night. Being a part of it for long enough, you forget why you ever thought it bad to see the stars up close.

So, Crowley smiled, and his angel returned the expression.

He loved.

And he loved.

And they loved, unafraid.


End file.
